We were approached by Simplicity, a consultant management company, to investigate a tech solution to their project tracker and client portal. We decided to do an investigation to map out what a product like this would look like and if it would meet their needs.
I wasn't concerned with technical feasibility. We already had a product that was similar to the client portal view and we could essentially use the existing product as a guide (and use the existing tech) for this new product.
There were some new features that the SketchDeck platform does not have like the project tracker. Simplicity had a project tracker in the form of a spreadsheet that was universally disliked by all of the project managers.
The old project tracker that consultants were not good at keeping updated
I did a series of interviews with managers from Simplicity in two different groups: one group worked exclusively for a large employer, the other was "strategic accounts" and worked on ad hoc and other recurring clients.
I learned that each group had very different work flows and needs. The project tracker was the product that they agreed would make the most sense. The goals and problems to solve were:
- Do not duplicate work of adding deliverables to the SOW as well as to the project tracker;
- A place for clients to view and monitor the progress of the hired consultant;
- A system that the consultants would actually use to track and change statuses of deliverables;
- All documentation in one place for the SOW requirements, files, project tracker, and check-ins.
The fun part of this project was creating a whole new product. I worked closely with the managers from Simplicity in a series of interviews and mockup reviews to refine the designs and narrow down the MVP for this product. We designed and built a new platform that their managers can use to create and track projects, clients can review SOWs and monitor progress, and hired consultants can receive their deliverables, deadlines, and in a kanban style, easily change status on their projects.